Color development is a practice that goes back as far as human history; whether it was color development for coloring articles of clothing, recreating a scene, as in an artistic representation, or creating colors for physical adornment, such as in cosmetics. Color development involves the creation of various color combinations from mixing a few primary base colors to achieve a plurality of composite colors. Color development continues to be useful in the fields of health and beauty, fashion, cosmetics, art, residential and commercial painting, printing and other fields that utilize color. For example, in the field of cosmetics, cosmetic technicians blend primary colorants to produce a shade that fits the consumer or that the customer desires. The basis for choosing a shade may be a customer's skin color, which may be dictated by the customers ethnicity, exposure to the sun, age and the like; or it may be dictated by the infinite number of colors found in other products, the imagination of the consumer or technician, or in nature. Similarly in art, the artist will create a plurality of composite colors from a handful of primary base colors in order to create their expressions in a plurality of mediums. The artist may create their desired composite color from copying another color that exists in a plurality of places, or they may create their color from out of their imagination. Historically, a good color developer stems from many years of repetative use of primary base colors to develop an “eye” and understanding of how different pigments combine to form color combinations.
For the consumer, technical person and/or artist, color development has historically been a learnt art through a means of trial and error. Various attempts have been made at simplifying and quantifying methods in color development. These attempts have been demonstrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,878,590 (Dodge) “Color Mixing Chart”, U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,265 (DePauw) “Color Blending & Paint Mixing Tray and U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,664 (Wilcox) “Artists Palette”. In the field of cosmetics the acknowledgement of color development for the consumer being a matter of trial and error was written in U.S. Pat. No. 6,284,228 (Markowitz) which, although allowing the consumer to create their own cosmetic foundation gave no means for the consumer to quantify their mixture and provides no quantifiable starting point for the consumer to develop their color. The matter of being able to quantify a color formula was covered in U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,120 (Swaab) which was intended for the creation of custom lipstick products for use at the point of sale to the consumer and also available for home use by the consumer. Whereas Swaab '120 offered a quantifiable method for combining shades of colors it didn't offer a starting point for those unfamiliar with color development and it would require its user to also blend additional bases and raw materials with their color mixtures to create a finished product. With continued reference to the cosmetic industry, the majority of consumers have generally been limited to the colors they would buy as ones which have already been produced. Over recent years some companies have tried to provide machines and methods that would allow for more personalized custom blending services as have been demonstrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,093 (Lombardi), U.S. Pat No. 6,437,866 (Flynn), U.S. Pat. No. 6,510,366 (Murray), U.S. Pat. No. 6,516,245 (Dirksing), U.S. Pat. No. 6,603,550 (Flynn), U.S. Pat. No. 6,715,642 (Engel) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,307 (Wilmott), but these efforts have been limited to being done at the point of sale by trained technicians and have left the consumer unable to blend their own products.
To date color development has been a learning experience though the method of trial and error by the consumer as is such in the field of art, the field of cosmetics and other before mentioned industries, custom color blending has generally been limited to an act performed at the point of sale to the consumer by a trained technician, or in art a skill developed over time. The few inventions which have tried to simplify color development for the consumer have failed to provide a simplified enough method for those with no color development experience, or have provided a method which would require additional mixing and preparation skills , without providing adequate starting points for people unfamiliar with color development. For artists, this could result in having to use much more base material than they need to develop their desired color. For the consumer who has their product blended at the point of sale, they are limited to the product that is made for them, unable to alter it on their own if they later find the color does not suit their needs or desires. This is best illustrated in the field of cosmetics with regard to makeup foundation colors where there are numerous variations in consumer skin tones and the final appearance of the foundation is dictated by the consumers skin tone and the light in which that foundation is made. What is needed is a color developing system designed to be simple to use for the mass market and one which would require no prior skills in color developing. In addition, this color developing system would provide base colors that are already fully combined with their bases and would require no additional chemicals to be added and most preferably products that can be blended at room temperature. The following disclosed invention provides the apparatus and methodology which will allow a consumer with no prior skills in the art, to custom blend their own infinite number of composite colors from either pre-formulated color combinations or from the consumers preference, which can be recorded and reproduced at their leisure. Furthermore, the preferred embodiment of the invention will also provide the consumer with a plurality of base colors to work with, a palette knife for blending them, storage containers for their composite colors and easy to follow instructions as well as formula color guide cards to aid and assist in their understanding of color developing. In addition, even though the invention is presented in the preferred embodiment as being a kit for developing face cosmetics (including but not limited to; foundations, highlights, shaders, neutralizers and correctives) it is understood that this invention can be applied to all color cosmetics as well as all artistic mediums and virtually any product in which various primary base colors can be combined to form composite colors.